On behalf of the Central Committee, I greet you all warmly welcome to the Communist Party’s 18 th congress. We are here today delegates from 34 local branches – one local branch more since the last Congress, the newly formed organization in the city of Linköping.

We also have 7 observers who are representing the newly established Communist Party working groups in the cities of Borås, Falun/Borlänge and Mora/Orsa.

We are expanding the Communist Party slowly but surely!

I would like to extend a special welcome to our youth organization Revolutionary Communist Youth, RKU. Their central board constitute a delegation at the congress, and there are also many listeners from RKU’s ranks. It feels good to have you here.

You are fighting in a tough political climate, and for that you should have all our appreciation. It takes a lot of courage to be young and communist today, but above all it requires patience.

When it feels tough, then know that the youth League has fulfilled one of its main tasks, namely to be a school. Without the Youth League the generational change which, although not yet fully implemented in the party, but still on track, would never have started.

So stretch on you, be proud to know that we, the party, need you!

Comrades,

on the way from work at the [Communist Party headquarter] Marx-Engels house, every day I pass a restaurant called Made in China. Through the large panoramic windows it is possible to see a large mural of the Cultural Revolution fused with the Gothenburg skyline.

Several of you have enjoyed the hotel Gästis and the Lenin Bath [in the city of Varberg] with its statues of Lenin, or hotel Havana with his puppet of Fidel Castro. You are not alone, but it flows guests at these hotels.

How do you see these two phenomena?

It is possible to dismiss as middle class kitsch in a process of gentrification or a way to stand out and attract customers.

So it is, of course, but it also tells us something else. That the anti-communist campaign has not fully succeeded, where the goal is to equate communism with Nazism. Believe me, a painting of the SS soldiers in a tavern called the Third Reich had not worked, or a hotel decorated with the Eagle’s nest as a model had not received many guests.

Certainly there are many anti-communist prejudices also among the class-conscious workers we meet. Sure the anti-communist campaign is serious.

At the same time the view that communism is something good is living, the view that a fair distribution of the fruits of society is something obvious, that solidarity and cooperation are part of what makes us human beings.

We are part of the movement that made political theory and practice of these deeply human thoughts.

We are part of the movement that for the first time succeeded to overthrow capitalism and build socialism, with all its all faults and shortcomings

We are part of the movement that stands up for socialism as the only way out of the deeply inhuman capitalism.

This is something very important and good. Therefore, we should always go with our backs straight, and therefore we should be very proud that we together constitute the Communist Party.

But comrades, it comes not only to have right, but to get right. It is not enough to win public sympathy among fellow workers or neighbours that the ideas we stand for are good, even if that is a start.

We also have to enable them to fight for their interests.

It is important to re-unite socialism with the working-class movement.

This applies to substitute class collaboration and consensus, with class struggle and conflict.

Here we have great challenges, we are all aware of. We are still too small and marginal to the tasks we have set for ourselves. We honestly admit that, because the first step is to fix the problems.

Comrades, we gather for our Congress in an exciting political time. The elite can no longer do as it has always have done, the people have stopped listening. Brexit [in Britain] is an example of this trend.

We are a party with great potential, but it is not obvious how to use this potential.

During the last Congress period, we have also taken small steps to hammering out a tactical line in our work and there are questions I hope and believe will dominate this Congress.

Which class issues are we going to persist to in order to find ways to reach class-conscious workers?

In what way should we work to concretise the general class politics?

How do we go from being the observers to those who engage in actions?

The outgoing party Central Committee looks forward to the debates at the Congress that will hopefully result in making us a little wiser and giving is a little better picture of how class policy is embodied in our respective local branches.

Some might become more satisfied than others, some of you will perhaps be dissatisfied if your specific proposals [motions] did not pass. But it is at a congress and it is in contradictions we get better. We refine our program and we refine our practice.

During this Congress, we will agreed in everything, and maybe some debates also may end in the fact that we do not agree.

But one thing we should agree on, is that we all assume that we uphold the Party’s best and through this we have a mutual respect for each other’s opinions. Then we can have tough debates and still be good comrades.

Comrades,

In the end of the congress period, a great revolutionary left us, namely the Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro. At his funeral on December 4 the Cuban President Raul Castro spoke and said among other things:

« Fidel rejected any form of a cult of personality and was consistent with that attitude until the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected. «

This is a firm opinion. Well a street could get his name, I thought. But at the same time this opinion is invigorating principled in its opposition to the cult of personality that even our party stands for.

But the cult of personality has nothing to do with the importance to honour and pay attention to the comrades who have been taken away from us. Also our party has lost revolutionaries. It is unfortunately part of the injustices of life that comrades who not only meant a lot for the party work but also for us as people no longer are with us.

The comrades who died during the Congress period are following: [THE NAMES OF THE COMRADES WILL BE READ]

These are comrades whom have all taken responsibility of the party in different ways. By being local branch treasurer, chairman, working in the local branch boards or party cells, being pioneer leaders in summer camp [of the party and youth organization) and in a thousand and one ways being a part of the party work.

I knew few of these comrades personally, but it is not needed to be proud of party members that in the greater part of their lives took responsibility for something greater than themselves. As in the party membership disregarded from their own convenience and looked to the party and the working class in the first place.

But at the same time got something back, as people. Like I said, I knew few of these comrades personally. I do not know their problems and their joys in life, but I am convinced that they felt pride and satisfaction in working with others for something larger than just themselves. A life in the struggle is a good life.

We honour our departed comrades with a minute of silence.[MINUTE OF SILENCE]

Comrades, we honored at our congress of invited guests from near and far. To greet the welcome and present them, I leave the word to the international secretary Patrik Paulov.

Statement of the PRCF to the 18th Suedwish Communist Party Congress

Dear Comrades, Allow me to thank you for your warmwelcome and to convey the comradely salute of the Communists of France, of the members of the Pôle de Renaissance Communiste en France (PRCF) for your 18th congress.

As you know, the PRCF works at the regeneration/rebirth of the French Communist Party as well as at the creation of a large “Antifascist, Patriotic and Ecological Popular Front.” These two objectives, far from being contradictory, complement each other. They act in synergy to create a progressive alternative in our country. Inspired by the seventh congress of the Communist International principles, our strategy aims at maintaining the necessary conditions for a revolutionary process in our country. This strategy is based on “the four exits” from : the Euro, the EU, NATO and Capitalism. Here again the social emancipation goal, on the one hand, and the national-popular sovereignty goal, on the other hand, support each other and lead to the isolation of the big and supranational monopolistic capital.

But we are also clearly facing other challenges :

We must fight against the ubiquitous war threats created by an imperialism in crisis. The struggle for peace—therefore for the exit from NATO—tops our agenda.

We must fight against the criminalization of Communism and of class-based trade-union action. This criminalization does indeed hide a trend towards fascism in our countries going hand in hand with bolder and bolder attacks against our social conquests and democratic freedoms to impose the antipopular policies of the bourgeoisie

In France, presidential electionswill take place in five months.We have decided to take part in these elections in our own way by distributing in firms, popular markets and universities 100,000 leaflets explaining the main lines of our program.. . Our positions are thus given first place.We will also give a critical support to Jean-Luc Mélenchon with whom we sharemany but not all analysis, and we will express publicly our differences. This critical support aims at preserving a political space for the Left, space that can serve as a relay for the coming social struggles. These bourgeois election must not make us forget that social struggles remain the main locus of Class struggle.

We will also, dear comrades, like all the World Communists, celebrate the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. Leninism is indeed far from being a page of History but remains a thought allowing us to construct a future of peace, democracy and social progress; in short, a socialist future. I have therefore the pleasure of inviting you to the meeting we are organizing in Paris on the 4th of November.We hope to see you there.

Let us tighten the links between the Communists of Europe and the World. Let us strengthen our exchanges, share our experiences, assert together our class positions, forge the proletarian internationalism of the 21st century while respecting the independence of each communist party.